


when pride is a virtue

by tuckercolour



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Gay Pride, Holding Hands, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Other, Pride Parades, Rainbows, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), religious homophobia, which Aziraphale refutes of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 21:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuckercolour/pseuds/tuckercolour
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale talk about Pride, learn a couple of new things about each other, and hold hands for the entire march





	when pride is a virtue

**Author's Note:**

> happy Pride month everybody I finally binged this show in one night and now I'm in deep

"It's London Pride next weekend," Aziraphale comments one Wednesday evening about ten or so months after the armageddon that wasn't. He's ostensibly reading a book, but given that the book is about 18th Century architecture, Crowley, who had just popped into the kitchen to fetch himself a glass of wine (and one for Aziraphale, of course, in the hopes that he would join), figures his mind isn't really in it, to come out with a non sequitur like that.

"So it is," he replies, pouring the aforementioned second glass and holding it out between book and face.

"Oh, thank you," the angel smiles, glancing up at him as he takes it and, abandoning the pretence, folds the book closed. "Yes, well. I was... wondering. If perhaps, you might want to go?" He licks his lips before adding in a slightly hurried way, "With me?"

Crowley raises an eyebrow as he takes a deep sip of his own wine. "You're going to Pride?"

"Well, not on my _own,"_ Aziraphale says as though the suggestion is utterly absurd, which, perhaps, it is. "That's why I'm asking _you."_

A slow smirk spreads across the demon's face. "Isn't pride a terrible vice?"

Aziraphale rolls his eyes. "It's not that kind of Pride, Crowley, it's different, you know that."

"Are angels even allowed to feel proud?" he continues, undeterred, practically grinning now.

"Well maybe I don't care if we are or not."

Crowley feigns shock. "Careful, angel, you don't want to end up like me."

"You know perfectly well head office isn't watching us any more. Besides," he adds, with a sudden sly look of his own, "you're not so bad really." He's somehow stood up from his chair and stepped over to where Crowley's draped across the sofa before his words have even registered, and the soft kiss he plants on a demonic cheek manages to be enough of an added surprise that Crowley merely opens and closes his mouth three times, making some indecipherable noise, while Aziraphale lifts his sprawled legs to sit down next to him with an unmistakably smug smile.

Recovering as quickly as he can, he relaxes his legs back on top of the angel's and says, "So, uh. Pride?"

"Quite," says Aziraphale. "What do you think?"

Crowley considers the matter. "Would I have to wear bright colours?"

"I'm fairly certain that's optional, my dear."

"All right then. Don't see why not," he shrugs.

Aziraphale sighs. "You couldn't muster even a _little_ enthusiasm for the concept?"

"Well," Crowley says expansively. "I suppose it doesn't seem like a big deal to me, I mean, I know it's a big deal to _them,_ the humans, they're celebrating in the face of centuries of oppression – and good for them! – but you know, it's not like that ever really affected _us,_ personally, is it?"

He waits for a reply, but the angel has gone very still, staring at the opposite wall with such a mutedly _distressed_ look on his face that he immediately sits up, puts his glass down, and prompts, softer, "Aziraphale?"

There's another pause before, voice carefully light, "I suppose, of course, that you were too busy sleeping through most of the late 19th century to join any of the _discreet gentlemen's clubs_ that were around at the time. Very nice places, but one had to be frightfully careful, you know, and sometimes someone just wouldn't come back one week and no one would have heard from him, and maybe nothing too terrible had happened, but maybe also it had." He clears his throat, looking down. Crowley reaches out to put a hand on his knee and is rewarded with a brief flash of smile. "And, oh, perhaps you were lucky, didn't spend enough time around humans just being yourself, or simply gave off enough of a demonic 'don't mess with me' air that no one ever dared –"

"Angel," he interrupts, a note of danger in his voice. "Did someone –"

"Oh, not really," Aziraphale interrupts right back, grabbing Crowley's hand in his own and squeezing, "not directly, I mean, and it's not like humans could ever really _hurt_ me, anyway, not _physically,_ even if they'd tried, it was just – comments, you know. Hostile stares. The odd slur muttered behind my back. Parents pulling their children away when I was only trying to _bless_ them, oh, that was always the worst..."

"What were you _doing,_ to even make people – think –" Crowley looks genuinely baffled, which makes the angel laugh.

"My dear boy," he says fondly, "have you _met_ me?"

Crowley, knowing full well the question is rhetorical, nonetheless answers, "Quite a lot, actually."

"Well," Aziraphale patiently explains, "I don't know if you've noticed, but on the whole, modern heterosexual human men don't often tend to act much like me. Or you, for that matter," he adds, eyeing Crowley's skinny jeans and thinking back to some of his previous hairstyles (not to mention all that time as Nanny), "which is why I suggested you were lucky not to have caught some flack yourself over the years."

The demon hums, picking his wine back up. "If anyone ever stared or pulled kids away from me, I assumed it was because I was demonically spooky looking, I guess. Not like I ever went out of my way to interact with a child before Warlock. Well. Not in a few thousand years, anyway."

"Ah," Aziraphale nods, sipping his wine. "Anyway, I, uh, I actually attended one of the earliest Pride marches, but it was all a bit much for me back then. Too much hatred from everyone else around. Things got thrown, a couple people got hurt, and I was just too overwhelmed to miracle all the bruises away. And, I was on my own. But times have changed so much in these past few decades, and I thought, maybe, now that we're..." He trails off, biting his lip anxiously, and Crowley _aches._

"Of course we'll go," he says in the soft voice he only ever uses for Aziraphale. "I – I had no idea, angel. Of course I'll go with you."

"Thank you," the angel replies, just as soft, and there's a slight smile on his lips as Crowley leans in to kiss them.

~×~

It's a bright sunny day for the Pride march through central London this year. Aziraphale, wearing a rainbow striped bow tie, is beaming as radiantly as the sun as he walks along amongst the crowd, hand-in-hand with Crowley, who can’t keep the smile off of his own face at the sight of his angel so happy. The demon himself is still in his customary black outfit, despite the heat – if he were human he’d be sweating through his jacket – but his loose tie is now red to match his collar, and when he noticed that Aziraphale had secretly miracled little rainbow stickers over the top of each dark lens of his glasses at some point, he hadn’t quite the heart to change them again.

 _"God will judge you!"_ comes an amplified shout from a way off to the right. Their heads whip around to see three people, behind a low barricade, two holding either side of a sign, the third a megaphone. The sign reads "SODOMITES REPENT". A pair of policewomen are vaguely nudging them further away without actually touching them.

"Judge me _fabulous,"_ someone yells back, and others whoop in response.

"Oh, for heaven’s sake," Aziraphale snaps, his smile vanished, and he’s pushing through the masses towards them before Crowley can stop him. "The fate of Sodom and Gomorrah had absolutely nothing to do with –"

"Is your sexual preference worth hell?" Megaphone Guy continues.

"Not gonna make a lot of difference to me," Crowley mutters, tightening his grip on Aziraphale’s hand as he weaves his way through to catch up.

"The Almighty has no issue whatsoever with what genders people are attracted to," the angel is arguing. "The important thing is to _love_ one another."

"You have been misled!"

"No, _you_ have!" he retorts hotly. "I know what I’m talking about –"

"It’s not worth it, angel," Crowley says, moving closer up beside him. The demonstrators are staring at their joined hands with something akin to disgust. "Come on."

"But _Crowley,"_ he protests, even as he lets his demon pull him back into the march.

"Come on," Crowley says again, brushing a kiss against his temple. As they walk away, Megaphone Guy somehow inhales a fly and starts coughing uncontrollably. The other two try to move to help him, but manage to trip over each other, breaking their sign in half as they fall to the ground and into Megaphone Guy, who falls onto his backside as well.

Aziraphale glances over his shoulder at this commotion. "Did you –"

"Shh," says Crowley, fighting back a smile once more.

"Incorrigible serpent," he admonishes, but his smile is back too, creasing the corners of his eyes.

When the march itself is over, they end up finally disentangling their hands so Aziraphale can pick up things from stalls and exclaim in delight. Crowley slouches along behind him, rather less interested in all the tat on offer, but, as always, glad his angel is enjoying himself. 

"Look at all these flags!" he's saying now. "Agender… Androgyne… Aromantic… Asexual… Bear… Bigender…" 

"You don't have to read them all out in alphabetical order, angel."

"I know, it's just – isn't it amazing, what people can come up with these days?" 

The stall vendor bristles. "We didn't _come up with_ them, these are all real and valid identities that have existed for thousands of –" 

"Oh, no, no, I'm sorry, not the identities themselves!" Aziraphale hurries to explain. "No, those have been around forever, of course, I just meant all the _words_ and _flags_ for them all, it's quite wonderful!" 

"Oh," says the vendor, relieved. "Sorry, it's just that a lot of people…" 

"Of course, of course, I should have been clearer." He picks up a hat with the agender colours and tries it on. "What do you think, dear?" 

Crowley is, once again, trying very hard not to smile too ridiculously at Aziraphale's excitement. "I'm not sure green is your colour, to be honest." 

"Hm, maybe I'll just stick to the rainbow. Sort of covers it all, doesn't it?" 

"I think that's the point, yeah." He glances at the vendor, who is now engaged with someone else. "Really should've been the point of the original one, too, of course, but eh." 

Aziraphale shifts a little uncomfortably. "Well, I think it was sort of supposed to be…" 

"Yes, for everyone who was _left,"_ Crowley points out. "Which would’ve been almost no one if I hadn’t been there, wouldn’t it?"

"Wait." The angel is blinking at him. "Are you saying – did you really –"

"Did I never tell you?" He laughs a little in surprise. "Of course I snuck the kids aboard, I wasn’t gonna let them drown. Besides, they had potential for future evil or whatever, and the Almighty apparently wanted them dead, so no one made too much of a fuss about it being un-demon-like."

"You saved the children."

"Everyone under sixteen, I think," he shrugs, and, feeling suddenly self-conscious, turns away to look at another stall. Following after him, Aziraphale falls somehow, impossibly, even more in love, and neither of them notice the once-wilted flowers they pass suddenly perking up as though spring had come again.

**Author's Note:**

> can I get a wahoo


End file.
